I was just about to ask him what was wrong, when he suddenly slammed his hand on his forehead and managed to spit out, “Anya?! Well, this is just great! Just… just wonderful!”
It all hit me at once. I suddenly remembered where I had heard his voice before. I grabbed his mask and ripped in off with tremendous force that elicited a howling “Ow!” There, standing in front of me, was not my Prince Charming, only a frog dressed like one.
“Kevin? You have got to be kidding me!”
I looked at him for one more second before turning on my heels and storming away. Once I had made it off the dance floor I started going through it all in my head.
Kevin?
Kevin was my mystery man?
That was impossible. I needed glasses or something. It couldn’t have been him; he wasn’t kind or sweet, or the slightest bit charming. He was the opposite of charming, multiplied by a thousand. Was the world out to get me right now? But then I realized that it wasn’t so impossible after all. But he was part of my court; how could he not know it was me?
As I was running it all through my head I felt someone grab my arm and turn me around.
“Do you think this is some kind of joke?” Kevin growled, still holding my arm. “You thought it would be funny to make a fool out of me, huh? Didn’t you?”
I rolled my eyes as I yanked my arm from his grasp. “No, I don’t think this is a joke. God, Kevin, are you really that convinced that I’m out to get you? Actually, I was trying to avoid you all night, but apparently that didn’t work” Again I began to walk away when I suddenly remembered something. “Oh--and Kevin,” I twisted my body around to face him. “You might want to work a little on that pick-up line,” I laughed. “I mean really…” I made my voice lower, “‘I don’t want to follow you all night… unless you want me to. Ha!”
I turned to leave one last time, but he caught up and jumped in front, cutting me off from any exit.
“Well, at least I don’t go au naturel in front of a security camera on a dare,” he spat out, hoping it would faze me. It didn’t.
“Actually, I was in my bra and underwear so I wasn’t au naturel. Now, why don’t go dance off into the field of sunflowers, my little fairy princess, and work on your comebacks, ‘cause they all suck. If you don’t mind, I think I’m going to head off to bed. I’ve suddenly become very tired.” I muffled a fake yawn and pretended to flutter away like a fairy. I made it to the staircase before I felt another tap on my shoulder. I turned around one last time ready to pounce on Kevin, until I realized that it was LaGard behind me.
“There you are!” he smiled, grabbing my arm and pulling me away from my hopeful getaway. “Now you must come with me because the representative of France would like to talk with you. He has many ideas about how we can structure a healthy bond with France and--”
I cut him off after hearing the word representatives. I wasn’t in the mood to talk economy this evening.
“Sir, I was actually headed to bed right now, and I really am just about to pass out. Maybe we can set up a time that I can speak to them in the morning. Just please not now.” I was almost ready to beg.
He looked at me for a minute or two and then nodded.
“Fine, we will set up a time in the morning. Besides,” he leaned in close, “he has had too many drinks tonight. He wouldn’t remember… a thing.”
Judging from the smell of his breath, LaGard was not the far behind the French representative.
“Bien. I will send Kevin to your room in the morning to discuss what we will have you do. You just sleep tight.” And with that, LaGard staggered his way back into the crowd.
Great, Mr. Happy Sunshine, I thought as I sprinted to my room and quickly fell asleep.
Chapter 10
The Call
The week following the Halloween Ball was anything but pleasant. As I had promised, I spoke to each representative separately, which was the most boring experience of my life. All I did was listen over and over about how we should have a strong economic bond with said country and blah blah… trade… blah blah… building better blah blah. I even think that the Spain rep was trying to hit on me.
Although all of it was dull, I did learn a lot that would help me in the long run. For example, you really have to negotiate in order to get what you want. Terrence told me that before we walked into our first meeting. I was glad to have him there for most of the meetings. He would actually let me participate and ask for my opinion on certain matters, unlike LaGard, who would seize the reins and never let go.
I would rather have put up with one hundred of those meetings than have to face Kevin ever again.
The morning after the ball I was so tired I stupidly went to open my bedroom door when I heard Kevin’s voice asking to come in. Before I knew it, the wrath of Kevin was swirling around my room as he screamed, taunted and baited me. Going on and on about how I should never try to make a fool of him again and how I should maybe not try to be such a flirt because it was too pathetic and desperate for words. I stood there at took it before I sent my own storm back at the fool. I told him that he sounded like an idiot, and that he was the one who started the ordeal. It went back and forth for a good twenty minutes before Barnes and Antonio showed up with Mari and Avery by their side. Apparently Avery had thought that I was about to murder Kevin, or vice versa. I don’t know about Kevin, but I was close to it.
Ever since then, Kevin and I hadn’t said more than a half-hearted grunt to each other. We even went out of our way to avoid each other in the palace. If I spotted him coming my way, I quickly looked for an escape route in order to miss the hurricane of angst that was Kevin.
So that’s the way the next couple of days went on. Nothing really changed... or so I had thought.
I was sound asleep in my warm little bed when I heard the sudden sound of my cell phone going off on the nightstand next to me. I had never used it since I had arrived at the palace, but kept it close at hand just in case.
It was 3:00 a.m. No one would be calling me unless it was urgent. And if it wasn’t, then the person on the other line was going to get a whole lot of grumpiness. I looked at the caller ID and saw that it said Maggie. I quickly flipped the phone up, wondering why she was calling. A quick mental calculation told me it was 11:00 a.m back home, which meant she should have been in class.
I clicked the answer button and croaked out a “Hello?”
I suddenly heard lots of people talking very loudly with much shouting. Then Maggie shouted, “Anya? Anya, are you there?” The background sounds suddenly went silent and I heard people making shushing sounds. “Hello, Anya?”
“Maggie I’m here…What’s going on?” I looked at the clock to check the time. “Why are you calling me so late?”
“What are you talking about?” She said, but her tone was suggesting a hint of irritation.
“Maggie, it’s three in the morning here. Remember, I’m in Russia. There’s a time difference.”
“Oh, yeah… Russia. On family business. That’s right.” The way that she was talking didn’t sound right. Kind of nasty, in fact.
“Maggie, what are you doing? Why are you calling me?” I was ready to hang up.
“Oh, I don’t know, just hanging in the classroom. Watching CNN. Hearing how you’re a princess? Anya, is it true? Tell me tell me tell me tell me--”
My heart suddenly sank. CNN had gotten a hold of secret information about me? Oh, I thought, this is just peachy!
“What? Have you been inhaling too many fumes in Chem Lab again, Maggie? Of course I’m not… not, definitely not a princess. I mean, really.”
“Oh, ‘cause, you know, it’s kind of weird how you just had to suddenly leave for Russia for some ‘family thing’ and all of a sudden this story comes out on CNN. Come on, spill. It’s me, Anya!”
I resented her implied quotations around ‘family thing.’ I wasn’t very good at lying, but right now I was trying my best.
“No, there is nothing that I’m keeping fr
om you…”
“Oh, just shut it, Anya. We didn’t read about it in some supermarket tabloid. It’s on CNN! Which I really find weird, because if I want to find out my friend’s royalty, I kind of want to hear it from her…not the freaking news!” She suddenly stopped shouting at me and then sighed, “Hold on, Sadie wants to talk to you.”
I heard a bunch of movement on the other end and then a soft, “Anya?”
“Hey, Sadie.”
“Anya, why couldn’t you tell us about this? Was it because they threatened you? Because I told Maggie that they threatened you when we first heard about it. But she was convinced that you were just being a bitch about it, but I told her that maybe they said they were going to kill us if we knew, like in all of those CSI shows. They weren’t going to kill us, were they?” From the tone of her voice, she sounded as though she was shaking.
“No Sadie,” I sighed, “they weren’t going to kill you. I just thought it would be better if you didn’t know. I can’t really tell you why I thought this, but I just did. It was all so confusing and I didn’t have all the information, so I didn’t want to answer any questions.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t blame you.”
“Thanks. So what’s--”
My bedroom doors flew open and a very sleepy, very groggy, pajama-wearing Kevin came storming in. He looked up at me and signaled to hang up the phone.
“Umm… Look, I got to go, Sadie. Just tell Maggie to lighten up a bit, all right. And to stop calling me a bitch, if that’s not too much to ask.”
“Okay. Bye, Anya. Have fun… doing… you know, princess stuff.” And the phone line went dead.
I put the phone down and got out of bed, heading for the lounge room. I needed to turn on CNN to find out what was going on. But then I noticed that Kevin was already holding the remote in his hand.
He looked at me and with narrowed eyes asked, “Who was that?”
I looked up. Great to know that we were talking again.
“No one, um, just my friends. Can you turn on CNN?”
“Did you tell them about the new-fangled thing they have called ‘time zones’?”
“No, they’re just stupid. Can you please turn on CNN?”
“Well, I mean, they should figure it out because it’s like 3:00 a.m. here now…”
“Look, Kevin. I’m using my damned manners right now! So can you turn on CNN so I can find out what the hell is going on in my life?!”
The TV went on in a flash and CNN was on a half-second later.
“Thank you,” I said sitting down in a chair.
There on the screen in front of me was some man wearing a very bad-looking toupee and the worst suit in the history of suits. He was saying something, but I really wasn’t listening. I was focused more on the words at the bottom of the screen that read: The Lost Child Of Russia Found… Anya Alexandrova (17) is now new royal face in Russia…. Pictures surface of the new princess….
There, on the top right-hand side of the television was a picture of me in my Halloween ensemble, without my mask. It looked as though the person had taken the picture when I was having my conversation with LaGard. Then more pictures surfaced. Over and over I just watched my face flash on the TV screen.
All of a sudden I could feel something forming inside me. It was my anger, my concern, my astonishment, my every feeling about this newscast mixed in to one big… thing. And this thing kept rising from my stomach, moving its way upwards. My fists began to clench when the thing got to my throat, and I could feel my muscles tightening. Kevin glanced over and could already tell what was about to happen, but before he could do anything it reached my mouth and with that I erupted, sending a bloodcurdling scream throughout my room.
Kevin sat there in shock and I heard footsteps come running through the door. It had to be Mari and Avery. Their room was now next to mine and I’m sure anyone within a mile radius was able to hear that scream.
I sat there staring at the screen for what seemed like hours. Who would do this to me? Why? No one in the palace wanted the public to know. The person who did this must have wanted to see me fail, wanted to see me crumble from all the public exposure. It was just to embarrass me…
Impulsively, I knew who it had to be. Who else would it be? Someone who wanted to get back at me for something, or just trying to make my life a living hell.
“How could you!” I bellowed at Kevin. He looked up at me in shock. “I cannot believe that you told the press! I thought we were supposed to keep this a secret. That’s the whole reason why I had to lie to my friends in the first place!”
Kevin just sat there for a while with that stupid shocked look on his face. He was just about to open his mouth when another voice came from behind me.
“Kevin, didn’t tell the press, Anya,” Antonio said. I hadn’t even noticed that he and Barnes were now standing next to Mari and Avery at bedroom door. Normally I would listen to what Antonio had to say, but I was so enraged at this point that my patience was cut short.
“How the hell would you know?” I asked, turning my body around to face him
He didn’t seem at all to be fazed by my outburst. He simply shrugged and calmly stated, “Because sitting next to the news reporter is Paul.” And then he pointed to the television.
I quickly looked back at the TV to see Paul sitting there in a suit and tie, but there was something missing. I couldn’t figure out what it was until it suddenly hit me. His mole. It was gone. Disappeared.
And then Paul began to speak and the name that appeared under him also confused me. It didn’t say “Paul McArmes” like I naturally expected it would, but instead identified him as “Edwin Aderfield.”
I couldn’t believe it. A reporter had snuck into the palace to exploit me. I sat there and listened to Paul--sorry, Edwin--talk about who I was, where I came from, and if I would be an effective empress. And he kept jabbering on and on, while new pictures kept popping up, along with new details about my life.
So that’s how my day went for the next fourteen hours. Everyone congregated in my bedroom, coming in and out like the mall on Black friday. LaGard and Terrence showed up only a couple minutes after we found out about Paul. They had their cell phones glued to their hands as they screamed at whoever was on the other end, demanding to know how could they have let this slimy reporter slip through the cracks. And when they weren’t shouting, they were whispering into their phones, pleading with whoever it was they were talking to now to stop the presses--but it was already far too late. The damage was done, and by this time the next morning, every country would hear about me and my life story.
Around nine that night everyone started to slowly head out, until it was only me, Terrence, and, to my dismay, Kevin. I was still staring at the TV, hoping that a bigger news story would suddenly break, but there wasn’t much chance of that. This was it, the story of the month, of the year, maybe. Terrence put his hand on my shoulder and tried to calm me down.
“Everyone was bound to find out anyway, my dear,” he said in an even tone. “It was inevitable. The only reason we didn’t want it known was because--”
“Because you didn’t want the person who got my parents to find out where I was and finish the job,” I said.
Terrence didn’t reply at first, which only made it clear that he too thought I was right. “You have nothing to fear, sweetie,” he finally said with a sigh. “The palace is full of the highest level security.”
“Didn’t stop ‘Paul,’” I said.
“No, and that’s unfortunate. But since the news broke we’ve upped our security and not even a fly could get in without being interrogated. Now, this was only a little slip-up and we are re-evaluating all of the employees again, just to make sure that this won’t happen again. You really have nothing to worry about. Why, even if I have to take a bullet for you, Anya, I would.” He must have seen the terror on my face because he quickly soothed, “But that won’t happen.”
Great. Now I had Terrence, who was pretty much a surrog
ate grandfather-type in my eyes, swearing he would take a bullet for me. Just wonderful.
Terrence got up and made his way to the door. “Now, Anya, you might want to get some sleep soon. I’ve already called Jo Ann, and she is sending something up.”
I noticed he seemed to smile slightly, almost provocatively, when he mentioned Ms. Rontes’ name. I guess there was no Mr. Rontes, or Terrence just didn’t care. Was everyone getting it on in this crazy place? Man, it was like the Palace of Love or something. So after the initial shock I just kind of brushed off Terrence’s weird little hint and nodded.
No sooner had he left than the food arrived. Apparently Ms. Rontes knew exactly what a girl needed when she was upset. In front of me was a huge stack of chocolate-chip pancakes, a steaming cup of hot chocolate, a heaping bowl of cookie dough ice cream, and just in case that wasn’t enough chocolate to chase away the blues, a half-pound bar of milk chocolate.
I scarfed it down as quickly as I could. After the initial sugar rush I felt my eyes getting heavy and my head beginning to droop. I could hear voices around me, Mari and Avery coming in to wish me goodnight and then the sounds of plates hitting a tray. I assumed it was one of the footmen coming to retrieve the remains of my dessert-slash-dinner. Just as I was about to pass out, I felt myself being lifted from the couch. I slightly opened my eyes to see Kevin looking down at me. I tried to wiggle free, but I got to hand it to the kid--he had a good grip.
“Let me go!” I tried to say, but I was so tired it came out more on the lines of “Lemme, lemme go-o-o-o….”
He just rolled his eyes and gave a slight smile. “Just calm down, now. I’m only putting you into bed, which is only a few feet away. So please, just relax.” He looked down at me and then said, “I just don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
“Fine, but no funny business. I can still kick your ass.”
I suddenly felt a little off-balance as he took one hand out from under me and pulled out the covers. I felt my head hit the pillow as the rest of my body was gently lowered. Then the covers flowed over me like a luscious, warm wave. Kevin made sure I was all tucked in before whispering goodnight and heading out of my bedroom.
God Save the Queen Page 6